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Sunday, April 20, 2014

ZIMBABWE: ...so they're doing it to babies

500 infants circumcised in government programme

THE Health and Child Care ministry has circumcised at least 500
infants in a pilot programme which started last year designed for young
children before they become sexually active.by Feluan Nleya
The ministry was working together with the Population Services International (PSI) on the programme.

PSI director for voluntary medical male
circumcision Ngonidzashe Madidi said for the purposes of sustainability,
they were studying the early infant male circumcision (EIMC) to ensure
protective effect of male circumcision is sustained.

Madidi said they wanted EIMC to run parallel with the adult Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC) programme.

"Currently, EIMC is in a study phase and we are happy to say we
managed to circumcise at least 560 babies successfully," Madidi said.

"The first training to do implementation was done in December 2012
and that saw at least 50 babies being successfully circumcised by
doctors."

Madidi said there was also a programme to train midwives to be able
to circumcise infants as they were the first to make contact with
babies.

The programme has so far been introduced at Edith Operman and Mabvuku clinics in Harare.
"The programme by the midwives saw them successfully circumcising 331 infants using the AccuCirc device," Madidi said.

Madidi said they planned to scale up the programme after the pilot
phrase and would be guided by the ministry in implementing it.

He said EIMC protected the infant from future infections such as HIV and bladder infections by 98% and 82% respectively.[There is noevidence that infant circumcision has any effect on HIV transmission. These figures have been pulled out of the air.]

The World Health Organisation recommends neo-natal circumcision
should be a component of prevention campaigns since it is less
complicated than circumcision performed in young boys, adolescents or
adults. [But it isn't. Any tiny mistake on a
baby is magnified on the man he becomes. Genitally cutting a baby is
ethically a very different matter from doing it to an adult volunteer.]